An Insanity Defense Should be Available to Psychopaths

Download or read book An Insanity Defense Should be Available to Psychopaths written by Christian Francis Richeson and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Current law allows certain criminal defendants -- not including psychopaths -- an insanity defense. Both Utilitarian and Retributivist rationales can be cited for the defense. This essay argues that affording a defense like the insanity defense to criminal psychopaths is justified on much the same rationales. Integral to the psychopathy syndrome is a set of neurocognitive deficits that render psychopaths significantly less deterrable than non-psychopaths: first, psychopaths' relative inability to recognize when a behavior pattern that once netted benefits now nets costs, and to change their behavior accordingly; second, their relative inability to form the mental associations between an aversive experience and the events which herald it; and third, their relative insusceptibility to fear, which results in the dread of further punishment being much reduced in them. Psychopaths are also less subject to general deterrence, because the psychopath's typical inability to conjure and be moved by emotional mental imagery blunts the warning effect of other offenders' run-ins with the legal system. Psychopathy undercuts the Retributivist rationale for punishment because, due to their characteristic empathy deficit, psychopaths lack the concept of normativity, and so are not morally responsible agents. Those who are not morally responsible do not deserve criminal blame. It is therefore wrong to inflict criminal punishments on psychopaths.